Dating is different after 40. Whether you’ve been in love before or not (or are not sure), you’ve likely seen and experienced enough to know what you don’t want. And as you get clear on what it is you do want in a relationship, you may be left with the question on how to get it.

Dating has changed. Relationship styles have evolved. And I ponder all of this with Katie Phillips, as she asks the women she works with – who do you need to be in order to have the love you want in your life. And from here the journey deep into you begins.

Listen in as we discuss

Dating after 40 / dating in mid-life
Preparing for a next level relationship
Who do you need to become in order to be able to hold a healthy, long-term relationship
Deep healing, transformational work and tapping into my spiritual self
The first step in getting the relationship that you want
How a powerful coach can help you find love and keep it
The joy of getting to know yourself and the magnetic power of self-love
Where all the men out there are ‘doing the work’ are
And how to find them
The surprising challenge of meeting Mr. Right

To continue the conversation on social media, join us on Instagram at @andreabalboni_lush

Book in a 30 minute consultation call with Andrea

For more wisdom, insight, tools and practices on pleasure and sexual satisfaction come visit me at lushcoaching.com

Connect with Katie here

FREE SUPPORT ‘MEET YOUR SOUL MATE EXPERIENCE’

FREE 5 day challenge reveals how entrepreneurial single women can boost self confidence, self trust and self worth TO ATTRACT YOUR SOUL MATE by taking you on an empowering inner journey.

https://katiephillips661.lpages.co/meet-your-soul-mate-ab/

EMPOWERED DATING MASTERCLASS

In this free Masterclass Katie will share 5 game changing teachings that can kick-start an inner journey which will make you a magnet for soul mate love.

Katie believes it’s imperative to your dating success to consciously and intentionally prepare yourself for the relationship you desire. As an energetic being, your work is to become the vibrational match to the person you are calling in and this is initially a journey home to yourself.

https://theschoolofself.love/empowered-dating-masterclass

And if you love the show, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes/Apple Podcasts.

Thank you!

Ep 4 - How to find love after 40 with Katie Philips

Katie Philips

[00:00:00] Andrea: Welcome to the Lush Love podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Balboni as a sex love and relationships coach. It is my mission to help you experience modern day love. That feels lush in all ways. I'm here today with Katie Phillips, coach presenter, speaker, author, celebrant, empower of women and founder of the school of self-love welcome, Katie.

[00:00:30] Katie: Hey, darlin. So good to be here. Thank you for having me

[00:00:33] So good to have you. Excited for you to share some of what you're doing in the world with empowering women and especially in the realm of love, helping women who are in midlife, particularly to really embrace this time of their life as an opportunity for them to find love maybe for the first time, maybe for a second or third time.

[00:00:59] Andrea: And so what I would love for you to share just a bit about how you're doing that, because I know. that there are many women who are maybe experiencing some challenge in the area of dating and relationships and feel like, especially when they're in midlife, they don't maybe know where to start or what to do. So as an expert in this in this space, I would love to hear a bit about your work and what you've been learning along the way, and then teaching to.

[00:01:30] Katie: Thank you so much. It does make me giggle when you say as an expert, because, you know, we teach what we need to learn. Right. And it's still amazing to me that I helping women to call in their soulmate and, and then the work is really preparing them to be ready for that next level relationship. It's, you know, it's about helping them to become the woman that can have the kinds of relationship she desires, but we all want to have this amazing relationship. We want to have a healthy, empowered relationship, but who do we need to become in order to be able to hold. A relationship like that and receive a relationship like that and you know, relationships for as long as I can remember have been a really huge pain point for me a huge dysfunction in my life. And yeah, the fact that I've moved through all that over the years and. The deep healing and transformational work that I've done tapped into my spiritual self and, and, and my spiritual growth, all of this work that has led me into finally having a healthy relationship, which I genuinely hands-on heart. Never thought it was possible for me. I genuinely thought that is for others and not me and not least when I hit 40 and then 41 and then 42, and my son is getting older. Cause a single parent for eight years. I was like, what's obviously absolutely not meant for me. And so I still do pinch myself and it's very exciting too.

[00:03:17] To be able to do the work I do and genuinely help women the way I do as evidence. That's. Gosh, it sounds so cheesy. And so many coaches say, if I can do it, so can you. But legitimately if I can do it. So can you and I really, really deeply relate to my clients, particularly my midlife clients, because it's a very different game dating in mid-life too. And meeting people as to when you're in your twenties and thirties, it's just, it's a whole new ball game, right. So, yeah, I am quite amazed that I'm, I'm doing this now. And. And just to say as well. So I've been a master transformational coach for around 12 years now and I was helping and I found it the school of self-love.

[00:04:11] And so in the early days of my coaching business, I was helping women who. Had this sense, they didn't know and love themselves. And to some people that might sound really weird because some people innately have that relationship with themselves, but my clients don't. And that was me, that I am my own client, essentially from, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And I was doing that work beautifully. And through that work, I was helping women to call in their soulmates. And I would find that women would come to me with a specific. Desire to call and love. And I would actually have to have the conversation with them that went well. I have helped other women with this and I, I can help you, but you need to know this is still a real pain point for me.

[00:04:56] And it was actually quite professionally embarrassing to be doing the work I was doing to actually have done as, as much healing and growth as I'd done at that point. And to still feel the pain of being single, you know? So it was, it's pretty wonderful to, to have not completed my journey. I'm absolutely still learning how and, and my new journey is how the hell do you have an empowered relationship? And I am having an empowered relationship because of the preparation work I did in order to call it a man like James. And so it is a super healthy, beautiful relationship. And gosh, am I still the students? And I know I'm going to be until the end of my days, this piece of relating to another human being in a healthy way. And So here I am doing my thing.

[00:05:50] Andrea: Such exceptional work. And it's so always so beautiful just to be in your presence and experience, experience you. My personal experience of you has always been uplifting and encouraging. And the women that I speak to who I've worked with, you always say in amazing things, they say such good things. So I have no doubt. And I share so much of your journey and my own life. And many, many women that come to me also will have a similar kind of thing, especially with the Hmm, the belief that it can happen for other people, it just isn't maybe meant for me, or I'm just not that kind of person that it will happen to, or maybe it could be possible for me, but I just don't see it cause I've never had it. So how do you help women to move beyond this and to begin to really feel that it is a possibility that it is really very much within this lifetime and even within a relatively short amount of time that they can move into a relationship that feels really.

[00:07:02] Katie: Well, it's, it's a real journey. And I it's, I do tend to bespoke it for the woman because there's no kind of seven step process to calling and love, you know, that's, that's kind of just marketing spiel and every human is different and all of my clients have different life experiences and childhood experiences and relationship experiences. And so we have to work with the individual to some degree. Well to a great degree. And to some degree there's, there's obviously there's kind of basic work that we all need to be doing. And the first step is actually, well, let me just see now, what is the first step? The first step actually is really acknowledging the desire to have a relationship like, to fully acknowledge it and feel that desire because it's so easy, especially with the women I'm walking with. To. Kind of just put the desire on the backburner because the truth is my life is pretty great. Like I've come a long way. I've got some great life experiences. I have a great job. I love my kids or, or I love not having kids, whatever the case may be. I'm pretty financially independence. You know, I, you know, I have a nice life. I have nice friends. I have nice hobbies. It's good. And I'm proud of the life I've been. So, I don't really need a man. And if you've really spent some time speaking with a woman on that subject and you do a little bit of digging, you start to explore. Why, why, what is this about you not really needing a man, and then you start to uncover belief systems like, well, a man will rock the boat. Man will somehow drain my energy. He'll drain my finances. He'll be a negative impact on the fantastic relationship I have with my child or children. He'll take me away from my business, which I love like the what I'm sharing here. This was all mine. I had all of this going on. I was that woman. I really love my life. I was traveling the world. I had a great relationship with my son. Love my business. All good. I wanted to be in a relationship, but I didn't want it to impact what I had. And then, so then the walk first up is to acknowledge well, can you have the desire and the life that you currently have? Can you have the desire and could you alive maybe improve or get better?

[00:09:40] Because you've wanted the desire to be, to love and be loved. Okay. The step one really is this deep acknowledgement of the desire and giving the desire, some breathing space like this, give it, given it some oxygen, allowing it to expand, allowing yourself to feel the feelings around that. Because another reason why women on they don't want to acknowledge this deep desire is it hurts. Like the yearning to love and be loved is, is so real. But there's pain attached to that because they don't have it and maybe they can't live. And then you begin to start exploring more belief systems that maybe they can't have it. Excuse me. And maybe I'm not enough. Maybe there's something fundamentally flawed in me that I don't already have it. And so then the work is exploring with this. I'm not enough peace. And where did that come from? So inevitably with probably 99.9% of my clients, we ended up doing some form of inner child work, but we really go back and explore. Where, where did what happened in your life where you made it mean that there's something about you? That's not there. And not meant to have what you desire and not meant to feel good. So it's, it's sort of deep transformational healing work that we're doing, and there's multiple other steps there on I could, you know, I could go on and on, but that's kind of, those are the sort of, that's kind of the first step into helping a woman move into a space of being available to receive love.

[00:11:26] Andrea: For some women just that can sound quite intimidating. So from your perspective, as coach watching a woman move through those first few. Pretty deep it's deep work and it's beautiful work. If someone is feeling a bit hesitant about starting and moving into the space, what do you see happen or what experience is a woman actually having as she moves through these first couple of steps?

[00:12:00] Katie: Well for sure, all of my clients would say they're terrified to begin with and. Equally though they're intelligence, intuitive, connected women at heart, and there's something inside them that just knows that the fear of going there, there's this feeling of, oh my goodness. This feels like an insurmountable mountain. To climb to be able to get to the other side they'll they know that while it looks scary and feels scary, it is the only way for them to create the life that they desire and to feel the way they want to feel. They, they just know they have to go there. They know they have to look at it. They know the importance of being supported through that and that they can't do it on their own. 'cause, I just, there's a degree to which with this transformation of work you have to do on your life. I mean, like I, as the coach, I can't do the work for them. But I can guide them and I can hold them safe and I can witness them through it so that it's less scary. And yeah, my clients, they have this mix of terror and excitement. It's the, oh, if I don't go there, my life's never going to progress. I'm never going to have the kind of relationship I want to have, but looking at it, looking at what's blocking me. Well, goodness, what does that mean? We'll have to change. In my life and change is scary for all of us, but then it's the excitement and the tapping into possibility that has them move forward. Anyway, it's, it's deeply courageous work and you know, that's why the, my first book I wrote called the self love affair, a woman's guide to a daring and mighty life. It's this P this daring and mighty piece. It's the it's courageous. It takes such bravery to embark on a body of transformation, a walk. But there's no looking back, you know, and I think for me, because I've done that walk because I continue to do that work I'm in the wa constantly. I'm so committed to, to it. I'm committed to living transformationally because I model that they're not on their own, like I'm doing it alongside them as well. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, you are. Yes, you are. We have to be right.

[00:14:36] Andrea: We're as much students and in it, and, and with the processes, with the practices, with the sticky stuff and with the joy also of moving through and it is transformational in that way. Is that beautiful? Beautiful. Flowering can happen. So whilst like with the caterpillar into the Chrysalis then becomes the butterfly. There are those moments of shedding skin. There are those moments of kind of discomfort, but then you get to wear a beautiful new wings.

[00:15:09] Katie: Exactly. And I think the role of the coach is to hold the space for that transformation and then celebrate with them. And there's something really powerful. And I know you'll see this with your coaching and your clients being witness. In your transformations, having somebody to really see you and hear you and unconditionally support hold and love you through that is so powerful. And so transformation. I mean, I think it really speeds up transforming. Yeah, it's pretty fantastic work, actually.

[00:15:45] Andrea: It is. One thing I also wanted to add for this phase of, of stepping into, or deciding to step towards this is, as you've mentioned, there is. Courage that wants to be had for sure, because you don't really know what you're stepping towards. You know, it's a fence that it's big. You have a sense, there'll be changed. You're excited. There's possibility. There's probably some fear. Maybe it's not going to work and all of those things as well. However, what I wanted to share and I'm, I'm gonna guarantee as well that your clients will experience a similar thing. Is that from the very first time that we meet and begin the work. Once we meet, as we begin to move through, they say, Hey, this is kind of fun.

[00:16:31] Katie: Yes, exactly, exactly. That it is. I mean, what a privilege to get to know you, you know, to get to know yourself.

[00:16:40] Andrea: Yeah. And it's so much less scary than I thought actually look forward to coming to the sessions. It's like a highlight in my life now. Yeah. And so. That experience of. Knowing yourself, like you just shared getting to know yourself in a whole new way and freeing yourself from the stuff that is holding you back is liberating. It's pleasurable. It's exciting. It's fun. And then to be witnessed and supported. It's a gorgeous, gorgeous gift to, to ourselves because you and I are still in it still get support. And then also to be there and give to two people, moving through women who are so, yeah. So it's kind of like writing women out there on the cost. The most, probably the most difficult staff is that initial step in. And then when you're in, it's the pleasure of the ride. It's the joy of the journey, which will have its challenges as we've spoken to, but then it's always recognizing that it feels a lot better than. The fear feels before you step in, if that makes sense.

[00:18:00] Katie: Yeah. Completely. And you know what this piece about, gosh, what a privilege to get to know me. It's fun getting to know me. I quite like me, you know, as you're experiencing that joy of. Self-actualization and transformation. What's important to remember for this. I mean, for my clients and for yours, your single clients. So for the single women I'm working with, who are desiring to call in love, it's so important that they have this experience of themselves, this positive experience of themselves as fun experience of themselves, the self loving. Experience of themselves because that's what their partner's going to have of them. That person is going to get starting to realize that, oh, getting to know me is really fun and delicious and interesting. And so that will be his or her experience. The person that you're calling in and, and that's a massive shift in perspective right there for a lot of women because they start out with, well, who would want, who would want me? What's so great about me. And so as you discovered that for yourself, you start to realize, oh yes. Maybe I could be a gift to somebody else as much as I'm a gift to myself. And there's a space. I talked to my husband about this and joke about this because I invested a ton of time and energy and money in my personal growth, preparing for him. I didn't know who he was at the time, but I knew I was preparing for him. And I was a gift to him. I, you know, quite often I remind him of my investment in him, well, in myself for him. And he's, he's so grateful that I bothered to. Do the work I've done to become the woman I was able to become. I mean, I've always, it's always been me, but essentially to shed all the conditioning and programming and limitations of sabotage, I've done that work to be available for him. And he's so grateful for that, you know?

[00:20:09] Andrea: Yeah. What a man, so many women who are, have been on the path or the journey of self-development for awhile, we'll say, okay. Right. I'm going to do all of this investing in myself. I'm going to do all of this change. I'm going to do all of this heavy lifting and okay. You're telling me it's going to be beautiful, but it's also an investment in time and in money and. Effort. And where are these guys that are doing this work too? Like, are there people out there doing this work too? Or is it going to be all me and now I am a gift to them, but they're not going to get. Where I'm at. They won't have done the work. It's like, how's that squaring? I was wondering if you could speak to that a bit.

[00:20:53] Katie: Yeah. I mean, I hear that a lot. I'm very excited to know several men doing fantastic transformational work with men. Right. And I'm sure you are connected to men and women doing fantastic transformation of what we've meant. So I think it's important to acknowledge that the belief that the guys, the guy I want guys, aren't doing this work there. Aren't awake, conscious, spiritually evolved men in the world. It's just a belief. It's not true. Just cause you think it doesn't make it true. I think that men are waking up and I think it's really important to actually look for evidence and proof. That there are men out there doing their work and there are men waking up just as we women are waking up. You've got to look for that because we do get what we focus on. And it's very easy to say what you've just said. And I hear it all the time in my clients. I totally get that. And I do think there's a little truth in it that, you know, women are leading the way I'm going. It is the rise of the feminine at the moment. At this point in history, we are leading the way and I, I take heart in the deep knowing that the feminine inspires the masculine and the mat, the empowered masculine we'll move into action. It's it's a given it's how energy works. So there is an uprising of women at the minute. Men are beginning to be inspired and do the work. And as a single woman who desires to be with a conscious, committed, evolving, man, you have to look for that evidence and you have to choose to believe that he is looking for you to you just have to choose.

[00:22:57] Andrea: And it may not show up in the way that you think it well in the person that's in front of you.

[00:23:03] Katie: Oh my goodness. No, I thought, you know, I was, you know, I expected my guy to be utterly different to the guy that showed up and the one that I made. I thought my guy would, would be working in the transformational space, probably an author of multiple books speaking on stages around the world. Like I thought that was my guy. I mean, what an ego did I have actually, but I just thought that because of what I was doing, well, he probably be sort of doing the same kind of thing. Not at all, not at all, but it doesn't make him. He's doing an incredible, phenomenal work and the world's is in a completely different space. Ironically, he's now doing transformational coach training. So I wouldn't be surprised if one day where we're working together and doing very, very similar work. And I fell in love with his heart. Not the job title tick tick, you know, not the income, not the D you know, the list he's just come at it from a completely different angle in a completely different way. And he has a spiritual wisdom that he doesn't even know he has. I, I can, I have the language around it and I would go to the retreats and do the workshops and read the books. He comes at it very differently. It doesn't mean that went on the same page with most things. It's do you know what I mean?

[00:24:30] Andrea: So how did you recognize, or how can women begin to, as you say, recognize whether it's the potential or the, or already actualized what is there to look for or what might give you a clue or how might it feel to be in the presence of a guy who is either in the process of waking up already woke, but it looks a bit different than we think it might, or how he shows up. Or maybe it hasn't started yet, but that has immense potential to go there.

[00:24:59] Katie: I yeah, really, really. It's such a good question. I really hear you on that. It's for me, when it comes to calling in the person that you desire to be with the focus. Like it's great to have the list and I, and a fun little project I do with most of my clients is to create a man menu where we draw up three columns, the first column, and it's non-negotiable must have qualities. And then the second column non-negotiable must not have qualities. And then there's a nice day. List. My nice to have list is at superyacht on a private jet. That's my nice to have list, but it's not an absolute non-negotiable must have, but you know, but we've got to move beyond the list. The list making is fun. It's important to get some clarity on the kind of person that you want. Mostly because most women only really know what they don't know. And I haven't actually dialed into the energy of what they do once. And then there's an ownership piece around like, am I worthy of that kind of man? So th there is a beautiful body of work right there, and we absolutely have to release attachment to these lists, surrender it and make our focus. More so on. How do I desire to feel when I'm with him? That's the key. How do I decide to feel when I'm with him and then not have that feeling, be something in the future that you have to wait to experience when he arrives. The walk is like the fun home home play essentially instead of homework is how can I create that feeling for myself and the here and now, because as I'm feeling that in the here and now I am the vibrational match.

[00:26:54] To him or her right. So the feeling is everything manifestation. It's all about, you know, this, right? Like it's all about the feeling. So we have to focus on creating the feeling now, which is beautiful because then it would decisions every day, a guided by how can I feel good to. And what does feeling good for you mean specifically for me calling and James, I knew I wanted to feel at home. That was the feeling. And what did that really mean? To me? It was, I feel comfortable. I feel safe in my own skin. I can just be me. I feel joyful. I feel secure. I feel content and I feel loved. So how could I create that for myself in the day-to-day? And that became my focus beyond the lists so that when I met James, I felt that, and that wasn't necessarily that comfortable either in the first instance, because I'd never really felt that with a man. So I was trying on something really, really new, you know, that saying that like you'll know when you're. But then when Harry met Sally you'll know, like, you know, about a good melon, do you know that quote? And there is, of course there's an element of that, but it's also important to remember that just because you know it and it's familiar, doesn't make it good for you. I mean, we could go off on a whole other tangent conversation here around conditioning and, and, and so on. But, you know, for me meeting James. Yeah. I felt at home. I knew, I, I felt that it wasn't that comfortable because I I'd never been in a relationship before where I could utterly trust a man that I could totally surrender with a man that I could really fully allow myself to be me with a man. So I knew it's when I met him, but it was goodness me. I mean, It was uncomfortable. It bought stuff up for me. So in meeting him. There was a whole, you invitation to healing and transformation.

[00:29:19] Andrea: Thank you for sharing that because it's, I think important to recognize that whilst we want someone who feels like home and familiar in some ways that when there is that bit of. Discomfort or dissonance there. It sounds like you recognize that as, okay. Those are growth points for me, perhaps, perhaps there's going to be a challenge that will allow for me to grow into a different space rather than instantly saying, okay. Because it doesn't feel 100% comfortable, then this isn't the right person for me, or there's something. Quite right here. So well done.

[00:30:02] Katie: Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's funny. You do the work to prepare, to call him in or be available to receive him and then you meet him and then the work really begins. But it's so much easier if you've done a lot of prep work before. Oh, for sure. And, and, and the whole point of this prep walk is to move a woman into a place of being more confident and able to speak her truth. And vulnerably share herself and share her feelings and ask for what she wants and, and, you know, to have these conversations that are just mandatory in a healthy relationship, and to get to that place, to be able to share vulnerably with another human being, we have to learn how to do that for ourselves first that's that's the prep.

[00:31:00] Andrea: If people do want to connect more with you and stay in touch and learn from you, then how might they do that?

[00:31:08] Katie: Well, you could come on over to the website, which is the school of self.love. And you can follow us on Instagram, which is at the school of self dot. We run a five day meets your soulmate experience. It's a free five day challenge. It's online. So you can dial in from anywhere in the world and yeah, come join the I'm. Sure. You'll share the link in the show notes. But that's challenge has been. Oh, my goodness. We've run five at the time of this recording, we've run five and it's blowing me away. The transformation and change women are getting in five days and for free. It's unbelievable. And they're going on to feel confident to date again. They're letting go of. Of past pain, they're allowing themselves to move on from past relationships that haven't been able to sort of say goodbye to. And and they're out there dating and some of them have even called in their soulmate on the back of it. So OMG, after five days, not bad at all. Yeah. Yeah. It's really powerful. Beautiful and a great community. So fun to, for the women to be in community with other women who are feeling the same and wanting the same and just not feeling alone in it, because that's the thing when you're a single, you just, especially in midlife where it does feel like everybody else is married and carrying on with lives. And you're the only one to realize that you're not, and you're surrounded by lots of other, super cool women who want what you want. It's it's, it's a beautiful space.

[00:32:52] Andrea: Even just that it's so empowering and rich and nourishing and so, so powerful. It's really good stuff. So thank you for the work that you're doing in the world and you thank you too. Yay. I will put all of your info in the show notes, so everyone has it and yeah, I hope to have another chat with you again soon.

[00:33:18] Katie: Thank you for having me.

[00:33:19] Andrea: My pleasure. Thank you. Bye.